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Wider Asia and Pacific Regional Learning Event on Service Delivery Approach to Rural Water Supply
Presentations

AuthorRWSN

Year of Publishing2016

PublisherRWSN

Institution

Description:

The RWSN Asia-Pacific Learning event was held in Bangkok, hosted by The World Bank, SNV and WaterAid Australia. 57 delegates from 14 governments attended to share knowledge and expertise on rural water services.

Publications you might be interested

This note summarizes some of the broad points of a June 2017 RWSN blog written by Dr Ellie Chowns on communitybased management (CBM) and the ensuing discussion on the RWSN Sustainable Services DGroup, to which many RWSN members contributed .

CBM is the prevalent management model for rural water supply. So what are the issues?
• Lack of accountability: Community management enables government officials and donors alike to abdicate responsibility for ensuring long-term sustainable water services.
• Inefficiency and lack of sustainability: Preventive maintenance is almost never done, repairs are often slow and sub-standard, and committees are unable to collect and save funds.
• Disempowerment: CBM reinforces existing community power relations, thereby breeding conflict rather than strengthening social capital.
• Lack of scalability and dependence on external support: The CBM model has never reliably worked at any scale but is continued due to a lack of viable, or proven alternative. One can always find 'successful' case studies of where it has worked fantastically well – but these tend to be isolated systems, reliant on constant

The 2016 Rural Water Supply Network Forum in Abidjan was the first global gathering to consider the practical challenge of how everyone worldwide can get access to safe, affordable water by 2030. It was also the first RWSN Forum to take place in a francophone country, in the 25 years since the creation of the network.
The Forum gathered 467 rural water sector practitioners from over 300 organisations from 64 countries in Africa, Asia, Americas, and Europe, in a bilingual (English/French) four day event. It was opened by the Prime Minister of Côte d’Ivoire, Mr Daniel Kaplan Duncan. We were joined by HE State Minster James Dengchol Tot, Minister of Water, Irrigation and Electricity of Ethiopia, as well as a delegation from AMCOW.

This Forum proceedings compiles all peer-reviewed materials. Separate downloads and links to the films can be found at: https://rwsn7.net/content/

Manual pumps have been used for centuries but this simple technology remains the mainstay of rural water supplies in many countries. The Handpump Technology Network (which later became RWSN) was set up in 1992 to promote collaboration and standardisation so that handpumps could provide more reliable and better quality rural water services.

This survey is aimed at practitioners in government, NGOs, private sector and development partners who are directly involved in rural water service implementation, or who are involved in the procurement of handpumps or spare parts (as either a buyer or seller).

Related Collaborations

Failure by governments and development partners to ensure sustained access to basic water supplies in rural areas is, to a large extent, the result of inadequate investment to deliver infrastructure where needed. It is also the result of a failure to ensure that infrastructure, once in place, continues to effectively provide the expected services over time.
Impressive gains from the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) era remain fragile and at risk, with various empirical studies indicating that 30 percent to 40 percent of rural water infrastructure is not functioning or functions below expected service levels (RWSN 2010).